HP laptops more toxic than they say, Apple more toxic than you'd think

Greenpeace bought five top-brand laptops this summer and asked an independent laboratory to test them for toxic chemicals. The brand-new laptops were taken apart and tested for nasty stuff brominated flame retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC), and lead.

Looks can be deceiving:

Of all the laptops tested, Apple’s sexy new MacBook was the most contaminated, with a concentration of 262 mg/kg of the toxic chemical TBBPA, a form of brominated flame retardant.

...And corporate statements often are too:

Results for HP revealed high levels of a number of chemicals in its components, in particular the highest levels by far of PBDEs (a class of Brominated Fire Retardants) including something called decaBDE. HP's website claims it removed decaBDE from its products years ago.

HP needs to ask its suppliers some tough questions. Lead was also found in the soldering.

Hey Eoin
Have you actually read the report? If you did, you would see that page 11 says that the quantities of TBBPA are 'trace' quantitites. Did you know that TBBPA is not a banned substance. Did you also know that 262mg/kg is so low that you could quadruple the quantity of TBBPA that Greenpeace found in the MacBook Pro and still be legally within a European definition of a banned substance.
Some other interesting facts that came from the Greenpeace report...since you didn't spend the time to read your own organizations document
- Dell has the highest bromine concentration (compared to the other brands) in the circuit boards, in the fans and in the keyboard surrounds,
- HP has the highest concentration in insulation sheets and touch mouse pads,
- Sony has the highest concentration in internal plastic connectors,
The conclusiions from Greenpeaces Toxic's in your Laptops report shows that last months Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics was completely flawed. Don't suppose you folks want to update the guide though?
This is starting to smell like a personal vendetta against Apple rather than a genuine environmental concern. What's going on with Greenpeace? Why is so much campaign money being poured in to this???
Stephen

Wow Stephen! You really know your stuff. Thanks for your interest in our report.
I contacted one of our toxics campaigners about your inquiry, and she kindly wrote me this detailed reply (below). She does a far better job at it than I could.
Before that though, let me tell you about a funny thing a colleague pointed out to me this morning using the magic of the internet: You (Stephen or "stephruss1973") appear to be working for Apple. If that's the case, then I'd suggest you get busy addressing the problems identified in the Greenpeace reports.
Let me start by saying we are talking about hazardous substances and they shouldn't be in our products AT ALL. Companies are responsible to make that happen.
The study does report that the TBBPA found is a small amount in the Apple fan. However, among all companies tested Apple came highest level at 262 mg/kg in the same component compared to Acer (55.4mg/kg), Dell (7.8 mg/kg), HP (86.7 mg/kg) and Sony (nd for not detected).
This is a figure that Apple shouldn't be proud of, claiming to be better than the other companies and claiming on its website that it will work on eliminating this particular BFR.
( http://www.apple.com/environment/materials/ )
Furthermore, this is only part of the issue. The report clearly states that the fan was tested in detail for BFRs (of which TBBPA monomer is one), as the initial screen testing showed that the fan had the highest level of total bromine (bromine is an indicator of bromine containing chemicals including BFRs). This was generally the case for all five laptops.
Apple shared 1st place with Dell for the highest levels of total bromine in the fan. The initial screening found that the total bromine level in the Apple fan surface was 7.0%. This is the level of bromine in all forms. Brominated chemicals contain not just bromine, but also other elements, and therefore the total level of brominated chemicals in the surface of the apple fan is actually higher than 7.0% [without knowing the exact composition of the brominated chemicals that contribute to the total amount of bromine its not possible to give an exact figure].
Detailed BFR quantification is a time consuming and expensive process - Unfortunately we were not able to analyse in detail the extractable BFRs in all 12 components found to contain bromine in the apple laptop (approx 1/3 of all materials tested and all with total levels of bromine above 0.1%!).
The report does highlight (conclusions, bullet 6) the differences between the total bromine level and the quantities of the BFRs that it was possible to extract, identify and quantify in the fan.
Clearly, as the report states, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to identify and quantify the vast majority of the brominated chemicals contained in the Apple fan.
As we noted in our conclusions, the remaining unidentified bromine in the fan is likely to be present in brominated polymeric or oligomeric forms. One such form is polymeric TBBPA – where the TBBPA monomer (the chemical analysed in our study) has been chemically bound into the plastic. The presence of TBBPA monomer in the fan (even at the levels found) indicates that unaccounted for bromine in the fan may well be polymeric TBBPA. (this incorporation of TBBPA in reactive form is given in the Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) section under Results and discussion)
Only Apple (one would assume) would be able to confirm the exact composition of all the forms of bromine within the fan plastic, and the total level of TBBPA incorporated into the fan plastic. Hopefully Apple would be as transparent with this information as we have been in exactly what we found in all the materials tested.
In addition to the list that the commenter listed he missed to mention that APPLE was found to have the highest level of bromine in the Chips as well as the FAN.
He might have also missed that traces of Deca-BDE (8.5mg/kg) and Nona-BDE (2.1 mg/kg) were found in the APPLE PC. Deca is supposed to be banned in electronics products and APPLE should not aim to meet bureaucratic standards.
Furthermore, the Guide was based on the policies of the companies and unfortunately Apple's policies are really bad.
We conducted this study to monitor the companies's practices and the study was a real reflection of the policies except for HP whom we have found lying and we did downgrade them on the guide ( http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/hp-apple-toxic-laptops180906 ).
Apple's result shows that they still have to do a lot to catch up with other companies like SONY for example (check the results of the VAIO) and much more on their policies to catch up with the other companies ahead of them in the guide.

Doesn't look like 'Stephen' will be coming back after being showed up as working for Apple. Some people have pointed out that an Apple IP address might indicate that the posting just came from an Apple store.
For the record here is the full IP trace of the post that confirms it came direct from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. Shame it seems Apple isn't focussing its staff improving Apple's environmental record.
Who ever Stephen Russell really is he posted to this blog from 17.206.14.197 and the IP trace:
whois 17.206.14.197
[Querying whois.arin.net]
[whois.arin.net]
OrgName: Apple Computer, Inc.
OrgID: APPLEC-3
Address: 20740 Valley Green Drive, MS32E
City: Cupertino
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 95014
Country: US
NetRange: 17.0.0.0 - 17.255.255.255
CIDR: 17.0.0.0/8
NetName: APPLE-WWNET
NetHandle: NET-17-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NSERVER.APPLE.COM
NameServer: NSERVER2.APPLE.COM
NameServer: NSERVER.EURO.APPLE.COM
NameServer: NSERVER.ASIA.APPLE.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 1990-04-16
Updated: 2000-05-23

In my personal experience, China is the main culprit when it comes to distribution of toxic industrial chemicals. EVERY product made in China should be thoroughly tested prior to acquisition by US Corporations. China companies have no incentive to clean up their act as long as US companies continue to blindly import these toxic substances, which end up in US aquifers.